A Bristol MP is demanding to know why nothing has been done to solve the problem of the dangerous roads in part of her constituency – seven months after the council admitted it was a ‘difficult situation’.

Residents of Ashton Vale said they are having to walk along dangerous roads, because lorries and cars park across pavements and trucks still can’t use a new link road specially built for them.

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Part of the South Bristol Link Road, which opened in May last year, included a special section connecting the new bypass to South Liberty Lane in Ashton Vale.

This was announced as a solution to the problem, as lorries could now go straight out of Ashton Vale without driving through the residential areas, or via the narrow bridge across the railway.

But for some of the haulage firms, the new road hasn’t worked – they can’t access it either because of parked cars along South Liberty Lane, or because they can’t turn left out of their premises instead of right to reach it.

The container incident in Ashton on Wednesday morning

Last July, following a potentially serious accident at the entrance to Ashton Vale involving a lorry which shed its trailer, local residents raised the issue with the city council – just a couple of months after the new link road opened.

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At the time, the city council said it was ‘particularly challenging’, and promised to ‘seek solutions’ with local businesses and residents.

Now South Bristol MP Karin Smyth is writing to Bristol City Council to ask why no solutions appear to have been found. She is asking for a comprehensive road safety and traffic survey of Ashton Vale to be undertaken by the council, which will then be used to plan for a solution to fix the problem once and for all.

The narrow South Liberty Lane road bridge (Image: Neville Norman)

Ashton Vale resident Neville Norman said people living in Ashton Vale had a number of problems – the most pressing one was that lorries still use the narrow railway bridge that is the only pedestrian way out of the southern end of Ashton Vale.

He also said lorries parked up on the side of the road constantly, blocking pavements and forcing young mums with buggies, school children and the elderly to walk into the road.

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“It’s a particular hell with the lorries coming and going and loading and unloading 24 hours a day,” he said. “This is noise pollution on a massive scale, and it keeps the residents awake at night.

“The pavements are often impassable too, and the bridge is a deathtrap waiting to happen,” he added.

Karin Smyth visited the area this week, met with residents and toured the road, and discovered another problem was people who work in the businesses in Ashton Vale park up on South Liberty Lane, also blocking pavements.

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“Karin has asked the council to undertake a full road safety survey of South Liberty Lane, which will including the consideration of a 7.5 tonne environmental weight limit on the railway bridge at the eastern end of the road,” said a spokesperson for the MP.

Last July, Bristol City Council said it could not put a weight limit on the old exit out of South Liberty Lane to force lorries to use the new one, because many of them physically couldn’t.

South Bristol MP Karin Smyth is concerned about parked cars clogging up South Liberty Lane in Ashton Vale

“We recognise this is a difficult situation for both residents living in and around South Liberty Lane and businesses,” a council spokesperson said at the time.

“It’s particularly challenging due to the physical constraints, such as the railway bridges on South Liberty Lane, which limit the directions that HGVs can travel in.

“These physical restrictions to the height and length of vehicles that can use certain sections of the road means that HGVs currently need access along the whole road, so we are not able to install any weight restrictions at this moment in time,” they added.